Perc 5i cards

Pandobear · 15 Feb 2009 at 19:21

Are all the Perc 5i cards the same? IF not which should I look for, I wanted one with eight channels and RAID5 support.

bremen1874 · 16 Feb 2009 at 02:11

AFAIK they are all the same except for the mounting hardware that'll vary depending on what machine it was originally fitted to.

jbloggs · 16 Feb 2009 at 11:26

For decent info on the Dell Perc 5i have a look Here and Here

Pandobear · 17 Feb 2009 at 22:03

Thanks guys, ordered a couple of these cards to try, the cables seem pretty expensive!

bremen1874 · 17 Feb 2009 at 22:41

You should be able to pick up a SFF-8484 to 4 x SATA fan out cable for well under £20.

dlknight · 18 Feb 2009 at 11:21

bremen1874 said:
You should be able to pick up a SFF-8484 to 4 x SATA fan out cable for well under £20.

Which cable do you need for connecting SAS drives ? Is it the "SFF-8484 to SFF8482 Fanout x 4 with Power" ?

Regards

WhiteKnight

Zarf · 18 Feb 2009 at 11:36

you don't need the power on there, but that should be fine, if i recall my SFF numbers right.

Dimension · 18 Feb 2009 at 11:53

I got my 4 way cables from an auction site for £4.99 each !

I would also point out that there are SAS 5i and Perc 5i cards that look similar
The SAS 5i has one SAS port, for 4 drives and does not have a memory slot. Some sellers on this auction site specify the wrong name ! The SAS 5i does not do Hardware raid5.

dlknight · 18 Feb 2009 at 12:15

Dimension said:
I got my 4 way cables from an auction site for £4.99 each !

I would also point out that there are SAS 5i and Perc 5i cards that look similar
The SAS 5i has one SAS port, for 4 drives and does not have a memory slot. Some sellers on this auction site specify the wrong name ! The SAS 5i does not do Hardware raid5.

Cheers will be getting some cables soon then

Even Dell get the specification wrong on their website, the SAS 5i's description says it is a Perc 5i...... that mistake almost had me until I realised why !

dlknight · 19 Feb 2009 at 10:37

dlknight said:
Cheers will be getting some cables soon then

That said I'm having trouble sourcing a suitable cable... have found only one source for the SFF8484 to 4 x SFF8482. Am I right in thinking the only difference between SATA and SAS drive connectors is that the SAS combines the power and data into one physical connector ?

Only problem with this is that you can't connect the regular SATA data cables to the drive because of the continuous lip on the SAS port (thinking what if I just cut a notch in the side the SATA connectors on a SF8484 to 4 SATA). :confused:

Cheers

Dave K.

bremen1874 · 19 Feb 2009 at 12:58

Modifying SATA cables as you describe should work.

If you've got a standard SATA cable kicking around it may be worth modifying it to check how secure the connection will be with one side of the plug missing.

Pandobear · 23 Feb 2009 at 20:05

I have set one of these cards up now and they are really quick. I did notice that they get pretty hot though, even with decent case cooling, but have now used a Akasa 210 chipset cooler to cool the card perfectly. The fan attaches to the heatsink in place on the Intel processor, and then the now passive heatsink fits on the LSI chip, giving a really cool card all round. Thanks for all your advice on this one guys.

Overclockers have the cooler at : http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-026-AK&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=399

marscay · 24 Feb 2009 at 00:37

weren't you dissing the Percs awhile back whilst pimping your WHS??? amazing what time can do

good call on the cooling they will burn out quite easily w/out active help.

btw have u tried to boot the 2 cards in one box coz i'm interested in getting another for some SSD Raid0 action, no ports left on my current Perc.

Pandobear · 24 Feb 2009 at 07:28

marscay said:
weren't you dissing the Percs awhile back whilst pimping your WHS??? amazing what time can do
QUOTE]

lol, you must have me confused with someone else...... all I was saying was ....

I do have two cards, and have ordered a triple SLI board to run two of them on, will let you know once I get it set up. These cards are for my main server, but I am still running the Home server for general video serving and back up duties, I just don't trust any one machine to secure all my data. I hadn't seen you on here for a while, and thought the coast was clear...

marscay · 24 Feb 2009 at 15:55

teehee i still lurk from time to time, be great to hear how you get along with 2 of them .....it should be fine in theory but you know

bremen1874 · 25 Feb 2009 at 17:54

btw have u tried to boot the 2 cards in one box coz i'm interested in getting another for some SSD Raid0 action, no ports left on my current Perc

These cards will actually support a more than 8 drives. I've got a client with a PowerEdge 2900 that has 10 SAS drives attached to a single card.

I came across a 1-5 port multiplier today for about £10 that I may get to have a play with.

marscay · 26 Feb 2009 at 00:14

bremen1874 said:
These cards will actually support a more than 8 drives. I've got a client with a PowerEdge 2900 that has 10 SAS drives attached to a single card.

I came across a 1-5 port multiplier today for about £10 that I may get to have a play with.

i'd always be worried that the port multiplier would fail, not so important if it's for raid 0 however.

dlknight · 4 Mar 2009 at 13:04

bremen1874 said:
Modifying SATA cables as you describe should work.

If you've got a standard SATA cable kicking around it may be worth modifying it to check how secure the connection will be with one side of the plug missing.

Well its in and working (see the benchmarks thread - http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17696862&page=35).

I managed to pick up a proper Dell SAS 4x drop cable from a famous auction site for £11. Luckily it must have been tailor made for my case as the cables are just the right length to reach the hard drive cage

.

Cheers

WhiteKnight

darkblade · 12 Mar 2009 at 20:30

Pandobear said:
I have set one of these cards up now and they are really quick. I did notice that they get pretty hot though, even with decent case cooling, but have now used a Akasa 210 chipset cooler to cool the card perfectly. The fan attaches to the heatsink in place on the Intel processor, and then the now passive heatsink fits on the LSI chip, giving a really cool card all round. Thanks for all your advice on this one guys.

Overclockers have the cooler at : http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-026-AK&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=399

How did you attach the heatsinks to the board?

dlknight · 12 Mar 2009 at 21:11

darkblade said:
How did you attach the heatsinks to the board?

I believe the fan will screw straight onto the existing heatsink on the IOP and the new heatsink comes with self adhesive to stick onto the other chip, see here.

WhiteKnight